In recent years, to realize crash-proof cars, driver assistance systems have been developed that monitor pedestrians, area in front of the vehicle, pedestrians or roadway obstructions to detect potentially dangerous situations and, if necessary, intervene automatically in an effort to avoid a collision. In a typical driver assistance system that detects pedestrians, a camera mounted on the vehicle captures images around the vehicle, and then a vehicle controlling computer called an ECU (Electronic Control Unit) detects and processes objects from the captured images.
For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2010-250501 discloses a vehicle system which arithmetically calculates the degree of risk of the driver's vehicle colliding with an object, using image data to determine whether the detected object is a pedestrian.